More of Grenada to Bonaire

Alright – we start the rest of the Grenada to Bonaire Blog. I am not going to do a play by play of the rest of the voyage. I think I will just try to figure out what people would find interesting about the whole trip. People have asked us at various times about various things so if I can remember some of them I will answer them in relation to this trip. First of all, sleep, or lack thereof. As mentioned, neither Cheryl nor I got much beneficial sleep the night we left Grenada. Friday, however, it didn’t immediately seem to have much effect. We were both a little groggy as the sun came up but as the wind freshened a little and the sun started to warm things up, a feeling of optimism and excitement (and still a little of the “what are we doing here”) began to shape the day. As it turned out, sleep was a bit of a problem over the time we spent sailing. Speaking just for me, I was reluctant to leave Cheryl up in the cockpit alone in a kind of darkness that seems different than it is on land. Of course we had chosen the time of month where the moon was least visible (waniest!!!) and in addition, it had set by 10 at night so the only light (well, not quite the only but more of that later) was from the stars, which although magnificent did not cast all that much illumination.

In addition to the darkness, we discovered something we hadn’t noticed before about being below decks while sailing. It can be very noisy. The wind seems to whistle louder, the mast seems to creak more and the wave action seems exaggerated. For me that meant that I assumed things were worse than they were weather-wise and I didn’t want Cheryl to start feeling worried about things. For Cheryl, unfortunately one of the things that happened, more in the beginning than towards the end, was that being below in the types of swells we were having, there was a tendency towards queasiness.

Anyway, that situation gradually improved and although we were a little tired during the trip, it never affected how we sailed or put us in any peril from foolish mistakes due to sleepiness. As far as staying awake and alert during watch, I discovered that if I stood outside the cockpit and watched the water and looked at the stars, there was such a sense of peace that I didn’t notice the time. As most of you know, I am not a religious person although I have a very strong sense of spirituality. However, I challenge anyone to come to sea, look up to the skies on a night when there are no other lights and tell me that it all has a strictly scientific basis or that we are the only living creatures in the vastness that you see out there.

There is one other source of light out on the briny and that is the phosphorescent particles in the sea itself. As you sail along and the wave breaks where the boat cleaves through the water, these particles come to the surface. They look exactly like a whole host of fireflies swimming in the water beside the boat except they are green. It is so cool. I must admit I also get a real kick when using the head (toilet to you lubbers). When you pump the water up from the sea to rinse the bowl, the phosphorescence is drawn up and swirls around the bowl. Hey – you have to take your entertainment where you can find it. In one of the heads, the hose that brings up the water is semi-transparent and it is really weird to see the hose start to shine as you pump. Enough of that.

As far as rest is concerned, we were able to take catnaps during the day and it was not physically demanding except for changing the whisker pole from side to side and doing the sail work associated with that.

People have asked what we talk about when we are sailing for long periods of time. I’ve thought about that and to tell the truth, I am not sure. It might be how the boat is handling the seas or the seas are handling the boat. We talk of the people we love back home and we talk of the future, whether on the boat or off. Sometimes we talk of our beliefs and how we have lived our lives. The nice thing about our relationship is that sometimes we don’t talk at all and it is very comfortable in the silence. We have discovered that dead air doesn’t need to be filled all the time because it actually has a life of its own based on our relationship. I’m not sure if that makes sense to others but the only way I can answer is with my own perceptions.


Back to a bit of day by day. By Friday morning we were past Tostigos and heading toward La Blanquilla. We had a schedule to adhere to in that we wanted to arrive in Los Roques in the daylight to deliver the parts to Mustang Sally. Los Roques has very tricky channels to traverse to get to where the anchorages are situated. We could have asked Mustang Sally to send a dinghy out but the seas we were in would likely have swamped them. As it turned out it is a very good thing we chose not to do that. More later.

Although the forecast had been for 10-15 kt winds, in reality we were getting 7-10 knots and the favourable westward current that is supposed to add 2-3 kts to our speed in fact only gave us about ½ kt. We were still managing 5 kts with those conditions but we needed 6 kts to keep to schedule so the first and second nights, when the wind died down to nothing, we were forced to do some motor sailing. I am not by any means a purist as far as sailing. Some folks will sail with 5 kts of wind at 3 kts per hour because they say they are sailors. If we are going somewhere, part of the purpose of the trip is the sailing but equally as important is the arrival so we were willing to motor. The down side of course is that on a downwind run with weak winds, the diesel fumes from the motor tend to blow forward through the cockpit. Sometimes it was like following a bus through downtown. Not often though.

So we sailed past La Blanquilla on the starboard side after first passing Los Hermanos, some small islands that, although uninhabitable, are in fact higher out of the water and easier to see. Blanquilla is actually about the halfway mark between Grenada and Bonaire so we were happy to see it go by and to be able to figure out that we would be in Los Roques in daylight. It is difficult to set a schedule for sailing long distance because of course certain parameters need to be met such as how much wind from what direction, how much current from which direction, which conditions suit the particular boat etc etc so we were happy to be halfway to our destination and probably two thirds of the way to our “Angel of Mercy” destination and still on time.

Back to questions people ask - did we see wildlife? Well, until the Bonaire to Curacao crossing, the only thing was saw, well, actually that Cheryl saw, was a big bully of a frigate bird picking on a brown boobie, which was holding its own but badly outweighed. Oh and we saw some flying fish, although not nearly as many as we have seen in other parts of the Caribbean. Bonaire to Curcao is another story which I will tell in another blog.

Final question I can think of right now is what do we do to fill our time. We didn’t seem to have a problem with that. I mentioned to Julie that three days of sailing is easily done unscheduled. Three weeks I for one would have to figure out what I wanted to do with my time. For this trip we had conversation, naps, our DS (Thanks again Jason), books, watching the sea, playing with the sails and whisker pole arrangements, eating and I guess whatever else there was to do that I have forgotten. I never found myself bored although there were certain times of day or night that seemed t o drag. Mornings always seemed longer for me than afternoons – not sure why. 3-5 in the morning sometimes dragged. Overall, time was not a problem on this trip.

We were lucky and didn’t on the whole run into any really mean weather except for a 10 minute period in Los Roques – trying to do the parts handover of course. Our biggest problem was not enough wind and the small changes in direction that, when you are flying wing-on-wing, can be problematic. I had mentioned in the last blog about all of this so won’t re-hash. I will tell you about Los Roques next.



Sails set wing-on-wing


After our second night at sea, dawn came bright and early and we actually had enough wind from the rear to run at a broad reach which was a wonderful change. It is amazing how the boat responds when it gets wind it likes. Without looking at the instruments you can tell that we are getting something good. A “swish” comes from the bow where the boat divides the water and although this sounds strange, Mystic Journey behaves like a horse that has just scented water after a dry day. It kind of leaps forward. I had read this before and heard all the terms and thought “Oh yeah, silly sailor talk” but it is true.

As we approached Los Roques we got into radio contact with Mustang Sally and made arrangements exactly where we would meet them so they could dinghy out to us. Of course the sailors’ equivalent of Murphy chose that time to play tricks. We had gone through the channel to get to the inside of the islands. Los Roques as you have probably guessed means the rocks and is a group of islands fairly close together. La Grande Roque has 3 rather big hills on it so is easy to spot but the other islands are quite low and hard to spot. We had come in the channel between 2 islands and then turned southwest between 2 other islands and then back west to come up the coast of La Grande Roque where Mustang Sally was anchored. We had left the mainsail out because we could use it to power the boat (along with the motor) and also because the main sheet was way out and also because if we took it down we would have to put it back up and my work avoidance principles had to be adhered to. We had taken our other sails down and as I said, we were coming up to the anchorage where they were to dinghy out and pick up the package. Murphy said “now’s the time” and up comes a squall behind us. We were down to about 2 kts by that time and the squall was travelling about 25 kts with winds, as we discovered, up to about 35 kts. It hit us just before we got to the anchorage. If it had come from straight behind it would have been less of a problem but of course winds in a squall can be like a hurricane in that there is a circular motion. Bottom line, it hit us all at once – no gradual build-up but WHACK. Mystic Journey heeled over to probably 50 degrees. Our toe rail was underwater. When that happens it feels like all ability to steer is gone which in a way is true. We needed to get the main sail down but two problems – to put it down properly the sail should be heading directly into the wind and to do this properly the sail should be centered on the boat. Of course neither of these conditions were being met. We applied “much” power to the throttle and attempted to come around which of course kept our mainsail side on to the wind and kept us heeled over. I was finally able to bring the boat around enough so that even though the boat wasn’t directly into the wind the sail was (don’t forget it was way out to the side). At that point we let loose the main halyard (that holds the mainsail up) and I kept the sail as much directly into the wind as I could. This is necessary because the sail is held to the mast with sail slides and in order for the sail to come down, the sail should be loose so the slides can slide. If the wind is pushing on either side of the sail, the slides bind and the sail doesn’t come down OR, the sail at the mast comes down but the rest is blown off to the side of the boom. Too much sailor stuff but I’ll get back to the squall. By keeping the sail centered into the wind, it finally came down, although it wasn’t pretty. While all this was going on Doug and Wendy from Mustang Sally were in their dinghy but hanging on to the side of their boat watching our antics.

Los Roques - yes the water really was that colour.

As quick as it came, the squall was gone and Doug and Wendy came out and got their part and kindly gave us some homemade peanut butter cookies. In 15 minutes we were out the west passage and on our way again. Of course we had to turn into the wind to put up the main again. We discovered while doing this that the seas had come up and we had 9-10 ft swells coming from the northwest and the winds had begun to blow a steady 18-20 knots. GREAT sailing weather – except we had a problem.

You may recall reading in our blog about the trip back from Trinidad to Grenada that we had to take sails down because we were going too fast and didn’t want to get to the anchorage in the dark. Guess what – now that we were free from the delivery schedule, our need was to get to Bonaire in daylight and WE WERE GOING TOO FAST!! This time we couldn’t slow down. The “lost current” had found us and we could not get down to less than 6 kts. We eventually even took down the mainsail but of course we had to have some power to keep some control of the boat so to make a long story short, we got to the shores of Bonaire at 4:00 AM where we very slowly motored along using our chart plotter to keep us away from shore until we could see.
I can’t describe the exact feelings we experienced as we motored towards the bay where we hoped to pick up a mooring ball and stay. Satisfaction, pride, tiredness, a bit of let down, apprehension about whether there would be moorings available. They are very “green” in Bonaire and in order to keep the coral safe, they do not allow any anchoring. There is one good marina, two not so good marinas and 40 mooring balls. I had gotten a reply to an email I had sent to them about 6 weeks earlier that said there were always mooring balls available but about 5 days before, we heard from someone who sailed there that they had gotten the second last one.

Tune into the next blog to find out!!!

If you want to get a sense of what is like to sail on Mystic Journey check out the video on the Perry's blog in our Other Link section.